New Vienna U-Bahn train design unveiled

THE design for new X-car six-car trains for the Vienna U-Bahn was presented on March 9 by the city’s environment councillor Ms Ulli Sima, Wiener Linien and Siemens.

Siemens won a contract from Wiener Linien in September 2017 to supply 34 driverless metro trains and maintain them for 24 years, with an option for 11 more trains.

The new trains will have full-width inter-car gangways, a seating layout designed to optimise passenger movement within the train and provide barrier-free access to passengers in wheelchairs. A transparent partition behind the driver’s cab will give passengers a view of the line.

The trains will have a new FGI Plus passenger information system, which Siemens says is a world first. The system will provide passengers with routing directions including connections so that they know before they arrive at the station how to reach the correct train, which should optimise passenger flows. Directions are displayed above each door.

The trains will have a lightweight aluminium construction and over 90% of materials can be recycled. The trains will have regenerative braking, while the use of LED lighting and efficient heating and air-conditioning should minimise energy consumption.

The trains will be 2850mm wide and will have 200 seats and accommodate up 928 passengers. They will have a maximum starting acceleration of 1.2m/s².

Delivery of the trains is scheduled to begin in mid-2020 and should be completed by 2030. They will be operated fully automatically on the new Line U5 starting in 2024, but the trains can also operate semi-automatically or manually on existing lines.